Saturday, October 31, 2015

For the past week I've been silently working on this major update for ALL .tsg. Mesh Heads.

Soon, Linden Labs will implement an update that basically makes it so that your graphics card determines your rendering complexity. You can raise or lower this depending on your own preferences. Anyone over your set render complexity amount will automatically rez in as a purple blob. No one wants to be that blob, amirite?Whew that felt like a mouthful...Hope that made sense. More info about avatar render costs here, here and here!

To see your own avatars render cost you need to have your "advanced" tab open

Alt+Ctrl+D to do this!

Once it's open do Advanced>Performance Tools>Show Render Weights for Avatars. A red number will float above all avatars.

I've heard anything around 50-80k is an acceptable norm for a fully dressed avie... I personally never lagged or had any issues with my heads before but I now know that I have to think about the majority of SL and my customers. I want everyone to have a pleasant experience in SL.

I've always known my heads have been way up there in render cost, but for a long time I didn't know I could do anything about it! Essentially, I just needed to be smarter about how I uploaded the meshes. (We live & learn, don't hate me! lol) and this upcoming SL update gave me the final push to buckle down and do something about my heads! I'd hate to have anyone regret their purchases!!

So, if you're someone who used to lag wearing tsg heads or your significant other lagged you due to their .tsg. head, or whatever the case may be, now is the time to head to the mainstore and grab an updated copy of your head from the redelivery terminal.All our demos and dev kit makeup layers have been update to reflect the changes too!

Render Weight Before & After (heads only)

please note: some heads are higher than others due to having a more expressions!

Mizu

Before = 489,610

After = 3,740

Tsu

Before = 414,588

After = 6,126

Dakota

Before = 305,682

After = 8,042

Iris

Before = 78,386

After = 2,768

Mimi

Before = 36,752

After = 5,702

Yui

Before = 35,612

After = 5,720

Aya

Before = 35,516

After = 5,876

So since I was going back to fix things I decided it was a great chance to make some cosmetic updates as well.

ALL mesh heads now have a more realistic/shiny/cute tongue texture. (Iris already had this!)

Also, on the 3 oldest heads (Tsu, Mizu & Dakota), I went back and gave them a cleaner and more attractive eyebrow shape!

I also took the chance to remove the lashes..for a plethora of reasons. They were causing a lot of alpha glitching issues and loads of people complained. A lot of people liked that Aya didn't come with lashes to begin with, so I just implemented that change across the board. I do have plans for add-on lashes that will automatically change with the expressions though. So stay tuned for that!

If you read all of this, THANK YOU & go grab your update @ the mainstore!!

Thursday, October 15, 2015

I decided to go with a spooky, bloody and scary theme this round for once lol. (Im not very confident making scary stuff but I like how this turned out). If anyone has played Blade&Soul you should remember the first world boss "Senior Jiang Shi". I was inspired by him and the overall Legend of the hopping vampire, so I went with a cuter and sexier version. I saw a lot of usage of metal claws in the folklore art so I tried that too. I like to think this is what Senior Jiangshi's daughter would look like lol!

Oh yeah, I learned a lot of interesting info about this type of monster here!

PRIZE INFORMATION

As stated on the prize key, the dress is made to fit maitreya, however it is not FITTED MESH. It is standard sized rigged mesh and there will be a demo to try near the machine. The sleeves and dress are separate meshes also but do come together. I just wanted to clarify this better!

ABOUT

"TAG! Gacha is a HUD based event that takes players out across the grid to discover the main stores of some Second Life’s best and most original artists. Their journey begins at Gachatopia, where they discover a new and original build each round and pick up a free game HUD. As they visit each store, players find a brand new gacha collection to play. Every gacha collection has a Mystery Rare in the form of a coupon that players can win. Once players have visited all 50 locations they unlock the redemption room where they can then redeem their coupons for their Mystery Rares. Mysteries are exclusive to TAG! Gacha and are retired after the event, never to be sold again."

There is a slight twist on this round of TAG! Its a great bonus for the players. When you go to tag the boards at each store, you will be randomly given a prize. Either a trick or a treat! I decided to make some cute halloween inspired nails. Hope you get lucky and win the one you like. These are mod/copy only.

Tears are by ALTAIR*Nails are an old tsg applier HUD on the MP here.Lashes are by Lovely Alien as usual!Here is a visual instruction on how I edited my lashes to work for the Iris HeadYou could follow these steps with any pair of mod lashes to customize your look

EYE INFO

Iris comes with a mesh eyeball that you attach independently from the head. It is no mod and has a texture change HUD.

If you want to create your own eyes, this is really easy to do. Ive included a FULL PERM copy of this same eyeball in the Iris Dev Kit. It uses the same UV mapping as regular old SL eyes.

If you want to wear your favorite creators eyes, take a pair of their modifiable mesh lens and edit it into place in Iris' empty eyeball socket.

17 .tsg. Eyes Included with Purchase

HUD CONTENTS

Its actually was a challenge to come up with lots of makeup looks for a single eyelid. Obviously I struggled there, so there arent as many makeup looks as usual. I tried to compensate for this by including all the popular skintones upon initial release.